Freedom and Self-Respect

I had the good fortune of reading the Godfather a few months ago when my friend gave me the book as a christmas present but what I didn't understand in the book was why did Don Corleone went into the Mafia business and the reason cited was the way of Sicilian life which had a great impact on him. After reading the Sicilian, I began to understand why some men went into Mafia. The Sicilian system back then did not reward the hardworking people and it favours the rich and the rich is by default when you are born. That is if you are born a farmer's son, you will be a farmer in your later life and the vicious cycle continues.

I truly understood the reasons why Don Corleone became the Godfather and one of the many things the system in Sicily took away was their freedom and respect. Freedom is priceless and he truly believed that he did not owe anyone anything if he can 'make his own bones' and with his vision, charisma and intelligence, he became the feared and yet respected 'Godfather'. Another thing the Sicilian system back then took away was their self-respect and the Godfather realised that no one should never take away his self-respect as that's one of the most defining virtues of a man.

As I was sitting in my steel tutorial class, I began to feel disgusted with myself as I was not able to understand a single 'shit' about the module and I'm putting myself in a position where I have to take down notes of the answers as I went to the class unprepared. The same goes for some of my modules where I'm totally lost in some of my modules.

I realised that you should never owe anyone a living as that would make you complacent and dependant. The army made me realise the value of self-respect and freedom and I told myself that I would never let go of the 2 things. However,due to my attitute in recent years, I'm starting to feel contented with almost anything which comes my way which is a dangerous one as I'm struggling to hold on to my freedom.

I then realised that I should not let this attitude be my own downfall in the exams and told myself that I had to do something about it. For me to earn the freedom from the Singaporean system, I need to 'make my bones'. It's very important that I do not become a product of the education and society where I will be swimming with the many fishes hoping for a lucky break. It's perhaps time to discard the complacent attitude within me and start to buck up and think real hard about the future and make plans before I even have time to wake up from my slumber and realise that I have wasted 25 years of my life at the end of my 4 year degree and become a slave to the system for the rest of my life by doing something worthless to get by in life.

Never Did I Expect

I never expected myself to like Frankie Sinatra. I always tried to steer of the oldies for a good 15 years as I felt that Hip Hop was the best music genre. After a few semesters in NTU, I was exposed to people who listens to interesting music and I began to slowly change and soon, Blondie, Barbara S, Elvis and Johnny Cash began to invade my computer and my MP3 player. I'm glad that I started to appreciate other music genres as I might have been living in a disillusioned world listening to Emmy, Jay Z, R.Kelly. Hip Hop is great but not all the time.

Frankie is a legend of the legends for giving the world unforgettable hits. I did a wiki search on him and realised that his music is not a fixed genre and covers a variety of genres. His songs though mostly sentimental does not fade with time. I made a stupid mistake of buying his CD which featured songs when he started out and I realised that the songs were not very popular. I realised I should buy only the essential or the best hits of a particular artist to maximise my dollar.

I'm trying to break into the French music genre as I believe the Frenchies have a lot of diamonds in their music scene. I'm sure I can get beyond the knowledge of Napolean, Eric Cantona, the French National team and my basic French. It might prove to be handy when you are interacting with a French chick. Maybe Brazilian music considering Adriana Lima. Cant't seem to decide.

Heart-Pumping

When I managed to find out about football being screened on Ch27, Arsenal was already a goal down and I was cursing furiously at Arsenal for not holding on to former main man, Henry and sticking with their youth. I was wondering if Arsenal were going to slip into oblivion this season and the thoughts were quickly dispelled when Arsenal was awarded a penalty and V.Persie scored from the spot. I cheered at the moment when the ball hit the roof of the net and I could hear the Gooners fans cheering loudly. When the second goal came, I went crazy. From pessisim to optimism in under 30 mins was what I had experienced in the game.

However, reflecting on the game, Arsenal's passing was still fluid and they have not lost the touch but they need a hardman badly and Mr Fabby though young is sort of a playmaker and not like in the mould of Roy Keane or Viera. The Arsenal team has potential although I have yet to see the Brazilian boy in action. I once wondered why did Arsenal buy Henry and I was silenced when he started to score like it's normal to do it and in no time, he broke Ian's record. I hope the Brazilian boy can manage at least 20 goals a season to give us a chance of battling for Premiership honours.

I still feel that it was a bad mistake by Fernando Torry to move to Liverpool. The examples of good strikers flopping at Liverpool are plenty- Hesky,Morientes,Cisse and many more. The boy is Arsenal material and I won't be surprised if he leaves Liverpool at the end of the season when Liverpool might finish 4th place again just to qualify for the Champions League again. What's new? Them winning the Premiership? Dream On!!!!

The Kite Runner

Amazing is the word to describe the latest novel I read. When I stumbled upon the movel a few years ago, I thought it will be another novel and decided to give it a miss. Another reason was that I thought new writers would not be able to drum up interest. After hearing rave reviews about the book, I decided to borrow the book and it's a page-turner. It narrates the story of a Afghan boy of Pashtun origin who enjoys an unique friendship with an Hazara boy and the story takes off from there and I loved the historical events unfolding in the book as it gives readers a taste of History.

From the details given in the book, I have never felt so much of hatred towards the Taliban. I have heard of how demonic and ruthless they can be and they are the scum-bags of the earth by forcing people under their control through the use of religion. Adultery- stoned to death, Shouting loudly at public places- Flogging and men must cover up when they are playing soccer and women are not allowed to work. I do not understand some of these rules as it does not make sense to me at all. The rules and punishment are so draconian and barbaric and these scum-bags even banned music and the arts- a pleasure to many.

In the book, beggers and street children are common-place in Kabul,Afghanistan and it's a far cry from the old days of Kabul where it was much better. I guess from past experience wars serve only a few peoples' agenda whose lust for power is uncontrollable and they will go to any extent to make it happen and once they have achieved power, they will go to even greater lengths to ensure their power is unshakeable and if it means, killing people to strike fear in the masses, these people will not hesitate to do it. A certain Hitler rings bells in our mind.

Thw world is ridden with civil wars and the rest of the world has to sit up and take attention and not let the incident just pass by as ethnic cleansing and the loss of lives should simply come to a stop as the world should not regret later for what it should have done.

1st Day of School

When Edventure is down, things get screwed up for a typical NTU student especially on the first day of school when the students need to use Edventure to print lecture notes which are not sold at the bookshop. The unspeakable horror happened this morning when the website was down in the morning and I was unsucessful in logging onto the website and I gave up after a few attempts. If the school knew or had anticipated the problem of heavy traffic on the 1st day of school, they should have done something about it as it was inconvenient for me and especially all the students who couldn't log in.Things did get better later in the afternoon when edventure was up and running.

It seems the Dragon babies this year are making their presence felt when I saw Canteen A flooded with students during lunch hour and it's just unsightly to see many students in a overcrowded and small canteen. Perhaps, that was why they are halfway through in building a bigger and spacious Canteen A and I hope it opens soon so that there can be at least be some breathing space for students having their lunch during peak hour.

The icing of the cake has to go to my elective's lecturer who literally drove away half the students taking the subject as the lecturer failed to inspire and was lacking in charisma and thus unable to convince people to stay on for the rest of the lecture and I was one of the many students who left a bit after the halfway mark as I always believe in the adage that Time is money and it cannot be bought and I wasn't doing anything productive during the lecture and decided to make an exit. I can perhaps excuse his behaviour as it is only the first lecture but I seriously hope the next 12 lectures do not turn out to be boring.

I just read an article in the Nanyang chronicle that the supermarket in NTU has stopped selling condoms.WTF. The reasons given largely border on the moral and I suspect religious and ethical reasons which were not brought up. The rise of STD cases are a cause for concern and humans are sexual creatures and can't be avoided and by not selling condoms because of a few people's dispproval is totally UNACCEPTABLE. This is IRRESPONSIBLE behaviour. However, if the ban continue to persist, I have a few recommendations for those who need one- EIther buy a pack before you come to school or order online.

In this time and age, it is very difficult to adopt a moralistic and ethical approach to sex. Sex is inevitable especially in our generation and if the use of contraceptives is not actively promoted and society tend to view sex outside marriage as unacceptable, we would no doubt witness a rise in STD and HIV cases where youth are misinformed about sex and do foolish stuff without realising the consequences of their actions. Let's face it- Sex is here to stay.